


you'd better throw the first punch

by alexanger



Series: good/bad/dirty [2]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Dryads - Freeform, Fair Folk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-09
Updated: 2017-02-09
Packaged: 2018-09-23 02:18:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9636458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alexanger/pseuds/alexanger
Summary: hamilton and jefferson come together.and it's not a betrayal, because -





	

Jefferson clouds his mind. In his presence, it's easy to forget - things get jumbled, blur together. 

Start from the beginning. Once you start, don't stop until the words have run dry.

 

* * *

It's not so much absentmindedness as it is a conscious forgetting. Hamilton is a clever man with a mind like a steel trap -  or should it be iron trap? No, no - mustn't joke about such things, not even just to himself. At any rate he doesn't  _ forget  _ unless he intends to. It's easier to forget and to pretend there isn't anything to hide; and anyway, there's plenty to reveal without dredging old family shame up. Hasn't he been honest in every way that matters?

It's like forgetting an allergy when one doesn't come into contact with it. He's allergic to horses. He doesn't ride now, nor does he drive, now that the war is over; he sits in a carriage when he must, walks when he can. It isn't unless he touches a horse that he remembers how they make his eyes itch and his nose run. And so much of his life is built around not being near horses - not being near iron - that it's so  _easy_ to put it out of his mind.

On his way home he muses on the wrought iron gates he passes by. A silly impulse - he reaches out, touches one, hisses through his teeth at the cold. It doesn't burn but it  _ could.  _ It's not unbearable, but that doesn't mean he likes it. 

When he draws his hand away from the gate, the tips of his fingers are pink, the same pinched flush that rises in his face when he thinks of Jefferson's vo- 

 

* * *

The iron dreams. They first came when his mother was ill. She doesn't, didn't, have the same blood - it's on his father's side -  and that was what saved him, what failed to save her. 

His heart, the human in him, died with her. He slept beside her quaking with fever and the dreams of iron came and he couldn't grasp why metal filled him with such dread. And when she wasn't there to ask - 

It takes far too long to find the name  _ Habetrot,  _ to compare that to  _ Hamilton,  _ to consider his lack of lineage, the way he fails to track his father's family back more than a couple of generations. He doesn't get any solid answers but there are enough crosses and coincidences that it seems foolish to doubt. 

And then he tucks it away. He doesn't touch iron. Out of sight, out of mind - worse to be fae than a bastard. At least a bastard is human through. 

 

* * *

  
  


The iron dreams are back, as vivid as they were when Laurens died. Laurens died and took with him the immunity from iron. Laurens himself was made of chlorophyll and light and he shrank in the night. The moon was never enough to sustain him. 

Like seeks like and they found something wayward and familiar in each other, something inhuman - but Laurens was complete, Laurens was entire, Laurens knew what he was and he was proud in a way Hamilton could never be.

“Seek back to your roots,” Laurens would tell him, and Hamilton would laugh. Such a perfectly  _ Laurens  _ thing to say. Chestnut hair. Oaken voice. Freckles like spots of dew, like the seeds along the bottoms of the leaves of a fern. Laurens had a habit of stripping off his stockings and burying his feet in the earth after rainstorms. Laurens had fingers that could peel the husk from a dandelion seed without injuring it. Laurens died in the night and Hamilton knows this without being told because in daylight, showered with sun, he was invincible. But away from the sun - 

That was when the iron dreams came back, began to drown him. 

Oaken voice. Arms knotted like wood. The smell of fresh cedar hovering round that tender point beneath his jaw. When all was quiet, the whisper of shifting leaves every time Laurens turned his head. 

And iron - iron endures, and trees do not.

Hamilton still wonders, when he remembers to, if a sapling sprung from John's grave. 

 

* * *

There are times, now and again, where some peculiarity of speech or conduct prompts Eliza to question Hamilton's decisions. 

“Have you  _ any  _ sense of morality?” is one of her favourite lines of questioning, followed closely by, “may the Lord find it in his heart to forgive you, Hamilton, because one of these days I won't.”

Hamilton wonders in these moments if God favours only His children, or if the fair folk are looked upon with kindness as well. Perhaps He is gentler to His own creations. Perhaps Hamilton won't answer to Him at all. 

How much human, he wonders, is enough? How much of a soul must be present for him to be weighed and measured and found worthy? 

But in between these conversations he is able to put such things out of his mind. Eliza, bless her heart, is kind and forgiving, and while her gaze may, on occasion, be full of reproach, her words are often soft. 

He knows she cannot fathom his mind - but nor can he fathom hers, the morals and unspoken rules that govern her every action. She is guided often by love, that much he knows, but so much of that love is  _ sacrifice _ and that makes no sense at all. A poor kind of love, if suffering is integral to its execution. Pleasure comes first, and if it may be shared, then all the better; but all things naturally come after, less important than the elevation and serving of self. 

But at times he looks at her in the night, the moonlight on her face - human, only human, a blessing, a curse - and he feels his heart ache in ways he cannot understand, and he catches a glimpse of the joining of love and sacrifice. For a moment, a fleeting burst of empathy, he  _ understands; _ and then the moment is gone and her face is simply a mask of sleep, and she remains unknowable. 

A pity, almost. But so it goes. 

 

* * *

-ice breaks into his thoughts as he sits at his desk. 

“Secretary Hamilton.”

A rough grate. Hamilton hears the points of Jefferson's teeth and raises his gaze to a predatory grin. 

“Jefferson,” Hamilton responds. The absence of title is deliberate. He hopes to pretend he has some measure of control. 

But Jefferson only grins all the wider - how is it possible for his smile to be so broad? - and Hamilton knows he's been caught, vulnerable, squirming, a rabbit dangling by its hind leg. 

“I have some serious concerns about your debt plan,” he says, and damn him,  _ damn _ his drawl, the rosy Virginian edge in his speech, the hint of a twang that sets Hamilton's heart galloping. “I wonder if you might be amenable to dining with me this evening. Perhaps we can reach some sort of compromise.”

“I have a strict policy of leaving work at work -”

Jefferson barks a sharp laugh, not unlike the bay of a hound following a fox, and says, “don't insult my intelligence, Mr. Secretary. You and I know both know very well that isn't true.”

He's been caught out and he knows there are reasons to refuse, a thousand of them that should be clamouring to flood over his tongue and past his lips, but the points of Jefferson's teeth whisper through his smile and Hamilton hears himself say, “alright, let's do it your way, then.”

“I dine at seven,” Jefferson tells him. “Don't be late.”

When Jefferson leaves there's the faint scent of something Hamilton cannot name. He hazily connects the scent to a rhythmic rushing, a crash but softer, a broad horizon, and then it's gone. 

 

* * *

Hamilton arrives to a sparse table. What little graces it looks near inedible. 

“Is this dinner?” he asks, trying not to sound  _ too  _ condescending. 

“Merely the appetizer,” Jefferson grates, pointed teeth, hunger, and he - 

 

* * *

Hamilton returns home to his wife asleep, curled around a pillow in the centre of their bed. She nearly glows in what little moonlight manages to break through the curtains. Only human, a blessing, a curse. Like seeks like. There was, for a time, a beautiful boy with soil in his lungs and an acorn soul, and now there is a woman with cheekbones like rolling hills and an ocean heart. She is a Mother, the curious kind of person who could love the whole world if she was given the chance. 

There's steel in her bones - Hamilton knows this as well as anyone - and she is quick and clever, far cleverer than any man might expect, and Hamilton thrills when his pretty wife proves she is, in every way that matters, at the very least his equal. To know that her fierce intelligence and her unbending morals are the counterpart to limitless love is to wonder. How could such a human exist? 

Hamilton loves his wife, he loves her so much that it aches inside his ribs, and so for her he puts Jefferson out of his mind. It is not a betrayal to indulge; it is only a betrayal to hold someone dearer than her. 

He brushes the backs of his fingers over her cheek and she murmurs and stirs. She is showing her age now, in lines beside her eyes and lips. Her beauty has not suffered for them. 

Only human. Hamilton looks nearly the same as he did at thirty. Youth effervesces from his face. 

A blessing. A curse. 

He does not want to be the one left behind again. 

 

* * *

The betrayal comes later as he awakens in the small hours. 

What little graced the table had seemed near inedible - strange slippery greens, damp, shredded, rubbery and difficult to chew, far too much salt. Strange shells filled with unfamiliar pale flesh. And, insult of all insults - 

“Lobster,” Hamilton spat, incensed. “You serve me  _ lobster? _ At least make some effort to pretend you have any respect for me -”

“Don't eat if you don't want it,” Jefferson had said, and he'd cracked open a claw with his teeth. 

By this point Hamilton had been - 

 

* * *

Eliza stirs and rolls and her arm drapes over his chest. 

“I missed you tonight,” she murmurs. Her hand trails down, seeks lower, and then Hamilton is drawing in a sharp breath. “I always miss you when you aren't here to fall asleep beside me.”

“This is hardly conducive to falling asleep,” Hamilton says. 

“You don't seem to be complaining, Alexander.” Eliza whispers these words against his neck, and she kisses him there, tightening her grip and tugging. For a moment, Hamilton wonders if she's caught scent of Jefferson, the peculiar smell of horizon - but then she clambers on top of him and settles back and down and he bites back a shout. 

It's only betrayal to hold someone dearer than her and in this moment, joined with her, there is no one dearer in the world. 

 

* * *

\- thoroughly exhausted. His bones felt light, hollow, empty of marrow. Full of salt? 

Salt is heavy - he'd felt light. Floating. 

There's something heady about Jefferson. Hamilton muses, muddles it over, tries to tease it out; but away from Jefferson, curled beside his wife, he feels only anger. There's no pull. 

The points of Jefferson's teeth, the points that show every time he smiles - 

Curious. Against Hamilton's skin, they hadn't felt sharp at all. 

 

* * *

 

Hamilton thinks of iron, black from the forge. He thinks of following his feet until he runs out of steps and he falls. He thinks of a great oak, branches spread to the sky, leaves desperately drinking in sunlight. He thinks of horizon and rushing and crashing and nothing.

Hamilton thinks of nothing, the concept of absence. 

He follows his mind until he runs out of thoughts and falls asleep. 

 

* * *

He dreams of jagged rocks thrusting up out of the sea. 

**Author's Note:**

> comments and kudos fuel my insatiable need for ANGST. chat to me at [alexangery.tumblr.com](http://alexangery.tumblr.com)


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